May 5 - 9th

This week we transferred our fully formed chrysalises to their butterfly houses.  We made several observations about the chrysalises. 

 

This week in math we explored capacity by pouring water between various containers of different sizes.  We learned the equivalencies for gallons, quarts, quarts, pints and cups.  We also learned how to use a very neat chart for remembering these equivalencies.  It's my favorite chart and I use it all the time when cooking!

This week we revisited our geology unit in preparation for our visit to UMMA.  We read the following book in partnerships, which takes the reader on a journey through the inside of the Earth!

We had a wonderful time on our "Art Rocks" field trip to the University of Michigan Museum of Art!  Huge thanks to Liam's Dad, Jaye's mom, Conrad's mom, Jamie's dad, Siya's mom and Sam's mom for joining us on this trip!  We discovered the following works of art, all with a focus on / made of rock: Nydia: a sculpture of a blind girl during the eruption of Pompeii’s volcano, Ganesha: a sculpture of a Hindu god in the form of an elephant,  Chinese carved funerary stone depicting the Queen Mother of the West with an accompanying student activity where the students each created a rubbing.

Limestone wall:

Group photos, both serious and silly!

This week in writing we began our unit on poetry.  We talked about how poetry is similar to music, without the melody.  We started by reading some Haikus, poems which follow a 5 - 7 - 5 pattern of syllables in each line.  We then tried our hand at writing our own Haikus.

Outdoor discoveries!

April 28th - May 2nd

On Tuesday we were lucky to have Savannah and her dad give a presentation on Australia, specifically on the area of North Queensland.  

The students loved learning about all the amazing nature and wild life!

In math we have begun to explore capacity.  We created two different shaped cylinders from the same size sheet of paper, one by rolling the paper vertically and one by rolling it horizontally.   We then made predictions about which would hold more pasta.  Some students predicted the taller, some the shorter and wider, and many thought they would hold the same amount.  It turned out that the shorter cylinder held more!

We have also been working on finding the area of various objects, both in square inches and square centimeters:

We have continued to observe the growth of our caterpillars.  By Friday afternoon, most had made their way to the tops of the containers in preparation for forming their chrysalises.

This week we also looked closely at beans that had been soaked in water. We split the beans and observed the parts: seed coat, stored food and embryo.  We could see the tiny plant curled up inside!

Indoor recess block exploration: